Techdirt Reading List: The Little Book Of Plagiarism
from the plagiarize-this dept
We're back again with another in our weekly reading list posts of books we think our community will find interesting and thought provoking. Once again, buying the book via the Amazon links in this story also helps support Techdirt. Earlier this week, we wrote about an important (and useful) First Amendment ruling by 7th Circuit appeals court judge Richard Posner. Posner is one of the most well known judges around today, in part because of his prolific writing on many different subjects -- not all of which are directly about the law (though many are). One of his books that I quite enjoy is the short book he published back in 2007 called The Little Book of Plagiarism. It's a quick read at only 128 pages, but a worthwhile look into the history of plagiarism, and whether or not it's that big of a deal.Plagiarism is one of those interesting things where people have wildly different reactions to it -- with some insisting it must be illegal (it's generally not, as there's no law against "plagiarism," though it may violate copyright law in some cases). However, some creative folks have finally begun to recognize that plagiarism can actually be a key element of being creative. Writers Malcolm Gladwell and Jonathan Lethem both wrote long articles more or less defending plagiarism -- with Lethem's article entirely plagiarized from other sources.
That's not to say that all plagiarism is excusable. Passing off another's work as your own is quite reasonably frowned upon in most instances, but what all of these -- including Posner's book -- suggest, is that it's the kind of infraction that doesn't need a legal response, but rather social shaming is actually quite effective at dealing with plagiarists and undermining their own credibility. Posner's book is not a defense of plagiarism by any means. It notes how unethical it can be and the problems associated with plagiarism, but does a nice job putting it into perspective, and noting that the context matters very much. And while there are times when it is clearly not acceptable to plagiarize, there are others where it's clearly a reasonable creative endeavor.
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Filed Under: plagiarism, reading list, richard posner, techdirt reading list
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"social shaming is actually quite effective at dealing with plagiarists and undermining their own credibility."
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"Social Justice" has lost it's cachet.
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Re: "Social Justice" has lost it's cachet.
As for the idea of "shaming" people -- the idea that it's gone out of style is pretty ridiculous, no? Pretty much everyone, no matter what their viewpoint/political persuasion/whatever makes use of social shaming at some point or another.
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Plagiarism does violate the law, even in the US:
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Re: Plagiarism does violate the law, even in the US:
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Re: Plagiarism does violate the law, even in the US:
Maybe in some circumstances, but certainly not as a bright line rule.
To prove fraud, you generally have to show, with specificity:
1) A representation of fact;
2) That the representation is false;
3) That the party making the representation knows it is false or at least is ignorant of its truth;
4) That the victim is unaware of the falsity of the representation;
5) That the representation is material;
6) That the victim had a right to rely on the representation being true;
7) That the victim actually relied on the representation being true;
8) That the party making the representation intended that the victim should rely on the representation in a reasonably likely manner; and
9) That the victim suffers an injury actually and proximately caused by the representation.
So for example, if I say that I wrote the novel Moby Dick, I put my name on a copy in place of Melville, and sell it to you, it's probably not fraud because it fails on prongs 5, 8, and 9 and probably on 4, and 7.
Just because something is a lie does not make it fraud.
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Re: Plagiarism does violate the law, even in the US:
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Plagiarism misunderstood
The false notion that an idea, phrase or sentence, as distinct to honor or credit for the same, can be stolen is the root of the reification of patent and copyright monopolies as "intellectual property".
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Re: Plagiarism misunderstood
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Copyright infringement vs. plagiarism
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The Disease of Society
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Re: The Disease of Society
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Plagiarism is a rather wide notion; so many people can mix notions and consider customary for modern world types of plagiarism a suitable means of creating something “new”. Most of people are simply not aware of other types of plagiarism apart from copy-paste, like paraphrasing; omission of citation of quotation marks; “mosaic plagiarism”: composing a text from borrowed phrases from someone’s text etc. All of these ways are only a useless effort to present somebody’s work as yours and almost each of them can be detected by plagiarism checkers. In any case, if you make intentional efforts to use one’s work, this action can be considered a literary theft. Each original work is protected by copyright laws and violating intellectual property you commit a crime.
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